[Advancement of patch-clamp technique and its application in drug high-throughput screening]

The patch-clamp technique, a dominant technique in cellular electrophysiology, is always being regarded as the gold standard for ion channel research. Application of the patch-clamp technique can demonstrate the existences of ion channels and provide valuable information for ion channels, including their electrophysiological properties, molecular structures and the mechanism of drug action. Genomics and proteomics research has showed that the development of drugs for ion channel target would be very promising in future. In recent years, numerous improvements have been achieved, which will facilitate the application of patch clamp technique in drug high-throughput screening. These techniques will break through the bottleneck in the development of drugs aiming at ion channels. New advancements in patch-clamp technique and application in drug high-throughput screening are reviewed in the paper.